


Both Will Defeat the Darkness

by jesterlady



Category: Star Trek: Voyager
Genre: Alternate Timelines, Episode Related, Episode Tag, Episode: s05e06 Timeless, F/M, Fix-It, One Shot, Romance, Screw the Temporal Prime Directive, Time Travel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-06
Updated: 2014-01-06
Packaged: 2018-01-07 16:01:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,443
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1121804
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jesterlady/pseuds/jesterlady
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He’d thought long and hard about what he would change about the past if he could and, though saving Voyager was his top priority, he couldn’t go through the next fifteen years again, he would not wish that upon himself.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Both Will Defeat the Darkness

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: I don't own St Voyager. The title is by Pablo Neruda

He decided not to die. Believe it or not, it wasn’t for his own sake. The minute he realized that Voyager was lost and that he and Harry were the only survivors, he wanted to turn back with everything in him, but he couldn’t. Harry was still alive and Chakotay was his commanding officer. He had a sworn duty to get Harry home if nothing else. It was what Kathryn would have wanted and done.

So Chakotay took a stunned Harry home and grit his teeth while they shook hands with Admirals and diplomats and everyone in between. The fireworks weren’t nearly as beautiful as the confetti Neelix had replicated for their celebration. The sight of them made him want to run away but all it took was for Chakotay to look at Harry and realize that he couldn’t break down. There was a sharp pain in his chest whenever he thought about Kathryn and thoughts of B’Elanna and the rest of his crew brought tears to his eyes. 

But he didn’t allow himself the luxury of feeling it. He did everything he could to get through this. He accepted his full pardon from Starfleet and when they had a banquet in his and Harry’s honor, he made a speech and he meant every word. Once the initial shock and flurry of concern about them was abated he took the weeks of recommended bereavement leave and he spent entire days in conference with his spirit guide, but it didn’t help.

He checked up on Harry every day, but it wasn’t going well for the other survivor either. Once Harry’s leave was completed he took the first ship to deep space that he could find, leaving Chakotay behind with a grim smile and a bitter reminder that Harry wasn’t a little boy anymore on his first mission. It was true, Chakotay knew that, but he couldn’t help but worry and feel responsible.

But with Harry gone he could spend more time on his own personal recovery. Some days that felt like a joke. He’d wake up in the morning smelling leola root stew and almost wishing he could eat some. He visited the graves of his Maquis friends and gave them B’Elanna’s regards. The new uniforms felt unnatural and strange when he put them on every day. Mostly, he just missed her.

Of course as the years went by he helped with the search for Voyager as much as he was allowed to, taking every opportunity to look for his ship. Harry was in contact every so often, but usually just with updates on his own search.

When Starfleet officially declared Voyager lost and all crew dead Chakotay went on a spiritual retreat to Central America. It didn’t help. For the first time since they’d found each other, he couldn’t contact his spirit guide. He returned to San Francisco, disheartened, to find a message from Harry about the Borg temporal technology that had been found. Harry was on his way back to Starfleet headquarters.

When he got there, the two of them worked on a presentation that would convince Starfleet to use the technology as a way to save Voyager. They were denied. When they petitioned for a second hearing, they were kindly told to let the matter drop and to take any time they needed to get through another mourning period.

When they left the building Harry cynically remarked that for all their trying to get home to Starfleet it had been a lot easier making the decisions on their own in the Delta Quadrant. Chakotay agreed with him though he reminded Harry that there had definitely been times when the Captain’s insistence on keeping with Starfleet protocols had been galling. Harry gave him a half smile and then announced his intentions of doing whatever it took to get Voyager back.

It didn’t take long for Chakotay to agree with him. Despite his absolute loyalty to protocol on Voyager, that had been more loyalty to Kathryn than any real affinity with Starfleet protocol. He was a Maquis at heart and when she wasn’t there to be his conscience as he was hers, then he was left with his old life and old ways of doing things. 

They resigned their commissions together and chartered a small ship out into the stars where they made their plans. It took them a long time to perfect what they wanted. Chakotay piloted and took care of their essential needs while Harry obsessively worked on his phase variation corrections. They fell back into old patterns of Chakotay leading and Harry being brilliant, even though Harry was much more vocal about his need to fix his mistake than his younger self had ever been.

As the years passed sometimes Chakotay wondered why they were doing this, why they had exchanged one form of exile for another. It was more than survivor’s guilt that kept them going, more than love for their deceased colleagues. He pondered, but he never really came to a satisfactory conclusion. Eventually they thought they had figured out where Voyager had fallen and that was when they met Tessa. She was the first person he’d met since they’d gotten back who didn’t either look at him with pity in her eyes or try to pretend nothing had happened.

He resisted her for a long time and she let him. It was that understanding more than anything that drove him to her arms the night after they committed their first criminal act and had to go on the run from Starfleet. He was so tired of being alone, of missing ghosts, of a love that even when both participants were alive, couldn’t be indulged in. He wanted something now, something tangible, something to help him feel. He couldn’t keep taking care of Harry and shouldering responsibility forever. He was determined to see this through, but he couldn’t do it on his own.

Tessa helped and there were no secrets between them. She knew how much he still cared for Kathryn and she didn’t try to change that. She was the buffer between him and insanity and slowly he grew to appreciate her for more than that. He knew that every day was bringing them closer to the time when he would lose her, but every day seemed to bring them closer together. Sometimes he thought about breaking off this obsession, but he’d promised himself and he’d promised Kathryn that he would take care of her crew and Harry had no such doubts. Harry couldn’t let it go.

The very fact that Chakotay felt that way made him realize that he couldn’t let it go either. He’d made a halfway attempt at starting a new life and it was growing, but the old life loomed on his horizon and his attention kept getting caught by it. Tessa was amazing, funny, witty, smart, beautiful, strong, with a penchant for spices that made his tongue ache to think of it. He found that he loved her and he told her so. She told him she loved him too though she reminded him that they both knew who he loved more. He had to agree but he wasn’t going to lose her before he had to.

They kept on with their search and one day they were ready to steal their own ship. It was a success and Chakotay ran his hands over the buttons and controls so lovingly installed by Tom and he felt a pang. He looked back at Harry who smiled bitterly, since that’s always how Harry smiled now, and said that Tom would be jealous of them right now.

Chakotay had to agree. Tom would have joined right in with their rebellion and insisted on giving them code names and wrung the heavens apart to get back to B’Elanna, which was almost the only reason Chakotay liked him. But Tom wasn’t there and they were stuck on their own.

After the Delta Flyer was procured they made the raid for the Borg temporal chip which was a little bit more difficult. In the process Tessa received phaser burns that scared Chakotay to death and made him realize again how much she meant to him. It got harder from that point because he was finally starting to realize that this world, this timeline, could be something good for him and he was doing everything he could to destroy it. Was it worth it?

That night they had to hide from Starfleet patrols and Harry took the watch. Tessa lay on their bed and Chakotay treated her wounds as best he could. He’d had to learn more than basic medical since they’d started their life of crime and he felt relieved to see the burns disappear under the dermal regenerator.

“Hey, I’m fine, so why the depression?” she asked, tugging him up toward her.

“Just thinking,” he said. “I feel responsible for you.”

“That’s your whole problem right there,” she said, putting her hands on his face. “You take the whole galaxy on your shoulders. It was my decision to come, my decision to fall in love with you, and my right to let you go.”

“I couldn’t have done this without you,” he admitted, pulling her closer to him.

“I know,” she said. “Boy, am I masochistic or what?”

He smiled and kissed her, not willing to put any more of his feelings into verbal communication tonight. This could very well be the last time he would touch her and if that was so, he would be hers for the night, wholly hers, without anything from his past coming between them. Maybe, just maybe, this was worth more than Voyager.

Yet the next day before they went down to the surface he snuck out of the bed while Tessa was sleeping, gently placing the covers up around her bare shoulders. Harry was still up in the cockpit so Chakotay went to the back and recorded a message. He’d thought long and hard about what he would change about the past if he could and, though saving Voyager was his top priority, he couldn’t go through the next fifteen years again, he would not wish that upon himself. He knew Harry inside and out by now, this new cynical Harry without any of the hope that he’d had when they first met, and Chakotay knew that Harry would be sending his own message, so Chakotay encoded his to be uploaded whenever Harry sent his, tied to whatever actually got uploaded when the message was sent. 

When they got down to the surface and he saw Voyager’s hull, there was a lurch in his chest he couldn’t describe. Walking through the dead icy corridors was like a nightmarish dream, the past colliding with the future in a ghoulish fashion. It wasn’t until he got to the bridge and saw the bodies that he didn’t have any more doubts. He was looking for someone in particular, but he saw Kathryn first of all. Blood rushed to his head and he leaned against the railing for balance, fighting the urge to throw up.

He was a man of control and so he would be again. He’d done his weeping and his grieving for years and yet still when he saw her, face frozen and white, perfectly preserved, it made him want to wail and break down. But he didn’t have that luxury. They found who they were really looking for and grabbed the Doctor and left. It was a surreal experience activating the Doctor and being reminded of how annoying and brilliant the man was. It was a taste of what Chakotay had wanted for years, the life he'd given up everything for.

He tried to give Tessa a choice, even though they both knew what was going to happen. Neither of them could stop the course they had set out for themselves. She told him that his heart was on Voyager and he knew it was. Sometimes he wished it wasn’t, but he’d never been able to release its hold on him, Kathryn’s hold on him. 

Then it was time for the tricky part. They had to do this quickly because Starfleet was on its way. Chakotay spoke with Captain LaForge’s too understanding face and tried to give Tessa one more chance for her life. She wouldn’t and he loved her for that. Harry and the Doctor worked in the back and Chakotay didn’t know what happened after their first attempt failed. What he did know was that he sat there, waiting for his destruction, a little sad to be leaving this life, envious of a Chakotay who never had to go through it, and guilty that he was happy it was ending. He held on to Tessa and the Delta Flyer’s core breeched, sending a blazing light into his eyes.

***

Once Kathryn had fully recovered from her disappointment she went about the business of getting the ship back in order. Harry and Chakotay and the Delta Flyer were retrieved, the ship’s damage was assessed, the Doctor was busy in sick bay, Tom had been dispatched to help him, and Seven had discovered information that greatly intrigued her.

Kathryn didn’t quite know how to process what they found. The phase variances had messages encoded with them. One to Harry Kim from Harry Kim and one to her from Chakotay. She restrained her curiosity and delivered Harry’s message to him. He was sitting in the mess hall, berating himself for not being able to get Voyager home and she did her best to allay his guilt, even though she was disappointed. She wasn’t sure what had happened in the future, but she was anxious to get to her own message and discover why Chakotay had written to her and not to himself.

She went to the privacy of her own quarters and replicated herself a cup of coffee, she was planning on being up all night no matter what the message said.

She raised her eyebrow slightly when Chakotay’s face came on the screen. He was much older, fifteen years older, gray all through his hair, lines on his face, and a haunted look in his eyes that she didn’t like.

“Kathryn, if you’re receiving this message it means we were successful in our mission. Hopefully you’re listening to it from Earth’s atmosphere if not Headquarters itself. At the very least you’re alive, which is all that I want.” He paused and shifted his feet, a stance she recognized well. It meant he was going to say something he wasn’t sure she was going to like. “You may wonder why I’m sending a message at all. We’ve pretty much smashed through every temporal directive there is to make this attempt so I’m not trying to preserve the timeline.

The truth is, the me there with you now would never tell you these things. He’s too busy trying to be honorable and respecting what he thinks are your wishes. Perhaps he’s wise to do that, but I can’t be. I’ve lived fifteen years without you, Kathryn, and I can’t tell you how horrible an existence that is. I tried to forget you, tried to move on, tried to keep on with our mission of getting home, but it just didn’t mean anything.” 

He ducked his head and clenched his jaw, she could see the strain against his face, and couldn’t do anything but watch with rapt attention as he spoke on.

“I…I love you, Kathryn Janeway. I know it’s not appropriate and I know it’s dangerous and I know we both have more important things to worry about than our personal lives, but I won’t go another fifteen years without telling you how I feel. I doubt it comes as a surprise to you, we’ve been dancing around the issue for years, but we didn’t let ourselves speak about it, we barely spoke about it when we thought we were going to be stranded on a planet together for the rest of our lives.” He stopped and laughed, a little cynically, which she wasn’t used to from him. “I can’t believe how proper we were. Dinner together almost every night, holodeck times scheduled together, affection reserved to looks and light touches, calling each other friend and confidant and conscience and counselor and everything but what we were.” 

He composed himself and looked directly into the screen and for a second it was like he could see her. 

“I won’t speak for you, Kathryn. I won’t tell me you love me too…but it certainly felt like it. I don’t know what you’ll decide to do, but I just want you to make a decision.” He looked at the screen without guarding his expression, none of the careful deference he was always so careful to cultivate, and she flinched at the raw emotion, guilt and fear and desire and hope and pain and love, all fixed on his face. “Please, Kathryn, just make a decision. Tell me you don’t love me or figure out a way for us to be together. I always swore to myself to make your burden lighter, but I’m older and more selfish now. Maybe I was right all those years ago to keep my distance, but I want a chance at happiness. I don't want to spend my life wishing I'd taken the leap and at least tried to be with you. I want you to be happy and I think I could do the job if you’ll let me.”

He stopped again and closed his eyes, his face closing off.

“Even if you can’t do any of the other things I’ve asked of you, promise me you won’t die on me. I’ll survive if you reject me, but, Kathryn, I know what your death will do to me. Don’t put me through it, that’s my dying wish, because I am dying today. I might die in the mission or I’ll succeed and this version of me will cease to exist, but either way I send you all my love. You continue to be the most important person in my life, long after you’re dead and gone. That’s a powerful personality, Captain. Remember me.”

The message stopped and Kathryn sat back in her chair, coffee forgotten and neglected by her side.

It was not a surprise to learn that Chakotay loved her. They both knew how each other felt and they both denied themselves. Sometimes it was unbearable, sometimes it was easy, but that was their unspoken agreement, to not let anything happen for the sake of the mission and the crew. They were free to pursue other relationships as had very occasionally happened and each time they pretended to be happy for the other. There had been times when she’d almost said to hell with her restraint but had never given in to the temptation.

Now…here was Chakotay, pleading with her for a chance. A Chakotay who knew a future without her. Was it fair to put his expectations on his younger self? She was a little angry with that Chakotay even though she knew that without him and Harry she’d be dead right now. Just because he’d lost…well, she couldn’t judge him for that. She just wished…somehow that things were different, that she could easily put aside her fears and doubts. She hadn’t spent fifteen years debating the matter inside her own head as he obviously had.

But there was something about his voice, the way he’d asked her not to die, pleaded with her to make a decision. She played the message again and again and again.

By the time she’d watched it six times over she was no closer to having any idea of what to do. She knew what she wanted, but she wasn’t a private person, didn’t have the freedom to make choices based solely on one or even two people’s desires.

There was only one thing to do. She grabbed the message and marched down the hall to Chakotay’s corridors and let him know she was there.

“Kathryn?” he asked, obviously having been asleep.

“I’m sorry to get you out of bed, but we have to talk,” she said, seating herself in front of his view screen.

“What’s wrong?” he asked, belting a robe around his middle and sitting down across from her.

“The two of us, that’s the problem,” she answered, more brisk than she would be if she weren’t feeling so uncomfortable.

“Have I done something?” he asked.

“Oh, you did something,” she said, linking the message to his view screen. “A you that I can’t even reprimand.”

He was obviously confused until she played the message and this time she watched his face rather than the one on the message. It went from curiosity to fear to horror to shame to interest to hope to poker in the space of a few minutes.

“I see,” he said, as the message ended. “I apologize for my future self’s behavior.”

“If I didn’t know you truly meant that I’d throw you in the brig for an inappropriate sense of humor,” she said. “I’m sorry, I truly am. I have watched this over and over again now and I still don’t know what to do.”

“We can pretend it never happened,” he said, facing her. “We’re pretty good at that.”

“I’m tired of pretending,” she said. “I don’t know about you, but after a little bombshell like that I can’t forget. That’s why we were so careful to never actually say anything because we could never take it back. And you, the older you, knew that.”

“I’d like to think he took a special kind of satisfaction in knowing how uncomfortable that would make us,” Chakotay said slowly. “But I noticed one thing; he obviously thought that we would be on Earth right now, home, away from the particular situation that always made us so cautious.”

“I got that too,” she said, sighing, “but it doesn’t solve our problem.”

“I know, I just felt the need to justify myself for some reason.”

“Chakotay,” she said, leaning forward, “I’m sorry for what you went through.”

“But I didn’t,” he said lightly. “His selfish desires don’t mean the same thing to me. I’ve lost you before but I’ve never had to live without you.”

“Technical details,” she said. “Tell me what you want me to do. I can’t promise to abide by it, but I have to take it into consideration.”

“I think I’ve already told you what I want,” he said, gesturing to the view screen. “He may have phrased it a little differently than I would have, but I promise the sentiment is the same. I do…I do love you, Kathryn.”

She groaned and put her hand to her temple.

“I knew you were going to say that.”

“You asked me to say it,” he said, sounding amused and affronted at the same time.

“I did at that,” she said, sliding closer and kissing him as if her life depended on it, which it didn’t, but it may as well have.

If she was used to a Chakotay that had learned to repress his emotions and kept his feelings private, then the Chakotay that kissed her back was unlike him in every way.

It was as if four and a half years of waiting had built up an endless reservoir of passion to draw from. She hated to use unnecessarily sentimental language, even in her own head, but Chakotay devoured her mouth, his teeth clacking against hers in his haste, his hands burning against her face, pulling her toward him with irresistible force. She forgot to be practical and rational and wrapped her arms around his neck and launched herself into his lap, pressing against him, kissing him back just as hard.

His hands left her face and tangled in her hair and slid down her back and adjusted her onto his lap and did so many other things she didn’t have time to process at the moment because she was too busy feeling.

She couldn’t tell how long it lasted because she was completely indulging herself but when his mouth finally left hers and she could breathe again, he rested his forehead on hers and kept one hand on her neck, the other around her waist.

“I certainly wasn’t expecting that when I opened the door,” he gasped out.

“I wasn’t expecting it when I came to the door,” she said, trying to still her racing heart.

“Does this mean you’ve made your decision?” he asked.

“I’m exploring my options,” she said, kissing him again. 

He kissed her back, slower this time, deepening their kiss, then pulled away again.

“Kathryn, if you’re not going to continue letting me do this full time, then tell me now because I don’t want to stop.”

“What makes you think I want to stop?” she asked.

“Just tell me,” he said, pulling back to look at her face.

She forced herself to think, to remember everything she’d been so worried about earlier. It was harder now that she knew what she’d be giving up. Of course, it had always been hard.

When she looked at him she couldn’t concentrate so she shut her eyes and thought about the desperation in the future Chakotay’s eyes and thought about how much she worried when he went on away missions and how difficult it was to keep from kissing him senseless in the turbolifts and how much she longed for company alone at night in her quarters.

“We have always been in love,” she said, opening her eyes and looking at him. “The only difference is now we’ve voiced it. Do you honestly think anyone on the crew will be surprised? In matters of propriety, I happen to know for a fact that you and I are very discrete people and I know you can keep your objectivity about my decisions.”

“I know you won’t abuse your position of authority,” he said. “Kathryn?”

“What?” she asked.

“I’d like to kiss you again.”

“You’re going to be difficult from now on, aren’t you?” she teased, gladly closing the distance between them and kissing him.

Now that she’d started, she didn’t think she’d ever be stopping. She closed her eyes and sent a thought out into the night to the future Chakotay, even believing that he was gone, thanking him for fifteen years of faithfulness and courage. He’d saved her life and he’d given her a gift and even if there were still questions and rules and boundaries, she wasn’t going to give it up.


End file.
